{"id":60977,"date":"2021-06-22T20:36:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=60977"},"modified":"2021-06-22T21:22:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T21:22:01","slug":"in-the-heights-and-colorism-what-is-lost-when-afro-latinos-are-erased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=60977","title":{"rendered":"\u2018In the Heights\u2019 and Colorism: What Is Lost When Afro-Latinos Are Erased"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018In the Heights\u2019 and Colorism: What Is Lost When Afro-Latinos Are Erased<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2021-06-21<\/p>\n

By Maira Garcia<\/strong>, Sandra E. Garcia<\/strong>, Isabelia Herrera<\/strong>, Concepci\u00f3n de Le\u00f3n<\/strong>, Maya Phillips<\/strong> and A.O. Scott<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nThe \u201cIn the Heights<\/a>\u201d cast includes Daphne Rubin-Vega, left, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Barrera (rear), Olga Merediz, Gregory Diaz IV, Dascha Polanco and Jimmy Smits. Warner Bros.<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The film, set in a New York<\/a> neighborhood known as the Little Dominican Republic, didn\u2019t cast dark-skinned Latinos in lead roles. Our writers discuss how that absence reverberates.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Heights<\/a>,\u201d the long-delayed Hollywood<\/a> adaptation of the Broadway musical<\/a>, has been heralded as a step for more Latino representation in Hollywood, but a conversation has emerged about colorism<\/a> and the casting of the film.<\/p>\n

The New York neighborhood at the center of the story, Washington Heights<\/a>, is predominantly Afro-Dominican. In an interview<\/a>, Felice Le\u00f3n<\/a>, a video producer for The Root<\/em>, asked Jon M. Chu<\/a>, the director, and some of the stars about the lack of dark-skinned leads in the film: \u201cAs a Black woman of Cuban descent specifically from New York City<\/a>,\u201d she told him, \u201cit would be remiss of me to not acknowledge the fact that most of your principal actors were light-skinned or white-passing<\/a> Latinx<\/a> people.\u201d Chu said it was a conversation and something he needed to be educated about. In the end, he said, they \u201ctried to get the people who were best for those roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lin-Manuel Miranda<\/a>, who is a part of the film\u2019s creative team<\/a>, which includes the writer Quiara Alegr\u00eda Hudes<\/a>, addressed the criticism last week in a statement on Twitter<\/a>. He apologized for falling short<\/a> in \u201ctrying to paint a mosaic of this community.\u201d Several prominent Latinos came to Miranda\u2019s defense, including the pioneering Latina actress Rita Moreno<\/a>, who later backtracked her comments<\/a>. It\u2019s not the first time Chu has had to contend with questions of identity. His box office hit \u201cCrazy Rich Asians<\/a>\u201d also had to address similar issues when it came to the casting of Asians and Asian-Americans in the film. (The lead actor in that film, Henry Golding<\/a>, is biracial.)<\/p>\n

I asked five critics and reporters at The Times<\/em> to weigh in on the criticism and what it means for representation in the arts. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. MAIRA GARCIA<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The film, set in a New York neighborhood known as the Little Dominican Republic, didn\u2019t cast dark-skinned Latinos in lead roles. Our writers discuss how that absence reverberates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8413,14646,8,20],"tags":[31537,29109,18934,24048,31528,31535,31539,31536,596,2640,31538,31532,20445,2327],"class_list":["post-60977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-communications","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-a-o-scott-2","tag-concepcion-de-leon","tag-felice-leon","tag-isabelia-herrera","tag-lin-manuel-miranda","tag-maira-garcia","tag-maria-garcia","tag-maya-phillips","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-times","tag-quiara-alegria-hudes","tag-rita-moreno","tag-sandra-e-garcia","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60977"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60984,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60977\/revisions\/60984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}